Evidence of conditioned behavior in amoebae.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31417086.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-11677-w and PMC identifier 6695432.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Associative memory is the main type of learning by which complex organisms endowed with evolved nervous systems respond efficiently to certain environmental stimuli. It has been found in different multicellular species, from cephalopods to humans, but never in individual cells. Here we describe a motility pattern consistent with associative conditioned behavior in the microorganism Amoeba proteus. We use a controlled direct-current electric field as the conditioned stimulus, and a specific chemotactic peptide as the unconditioned stimulus. The amoebae are capable of linking two independent past events, generating persistent locomotion movements that can prevail for 44 min on average. We confirm a similar behavior in a related species, Metamoeba leningradensis. Thus, our results indicate that unicellular organisms can modify their behavior during migration by associative conditioning.
Medical subject headings
- Amoeba
- Association Learning
- Conditioning, Classical
- Locomotion